A food crisis in the making. Graph from CSIS, “The Strait of Hormuz in 8 Charts” (22 April 2026).
The Oil Shock in East Asia
From the IMF’s Asia Pacific Department, a blog “Asia’s Economic Resilience Is Being Tested by the Energy Shock”, two tables of interest: Oil and natural gas import dependence and intensity.
Five Year Inflation Expectations, April 22
Inflation break-even as of today: 2.61%
Retail Sales Surprise and Alternative Business Cycle Indicators
Nominal retail sales grew 1.7% m/m, above Bloomberg consensus of 1.4%. With the advance release of sales, and coincident index from the Philadelphia Fed, we have the following picture.
Today’s TACO Tuesday and the Markets
Gallup, U.Michigan, Conference Board Compared, Plus Morning Consult
Standardized indicators:
How Badly Is the Russian Economy Doing?
Nobody knows. But when the official statistics show negative growth, it must be pretty bad.
Wisconsin Post-“Liberation Day”
Employment and goods exports have declined. GDP flatlines in Q4.
Aizenman, Desbordes and Saadaoui: Quantifying Trade Destruction from Bombs & Bullets vs. Taxes and Sanctions
That’s my description. From their newly released NBER Working Paper, Bilateral Conflict Risk and Trade: Military Wars, Trade Wars, and Diplomatic Noise, by Joshua Aizenman, Rodolphe Desbordes and Jamel Saadaoui:
More on the Gasoline Price Outlook
Lydia De Pillis has an article in the NYT on how gasoline prices don’t move one-for-one with oil prices: